Hiding From TRUTH

 

Friday, March 17, 2023

But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord:  your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice?  Listen!  Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.  Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols.  So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.”  Then Saul admitted to Samuel, “Yes, I have sinned.  I have disobeyed your instructions and the Lord’s command, for I was afraid of the people and did what they demanded.  But now, please forgive my sin and come back with me so that I may worship the Lord.”  But Samuel replied, “I will not go back with you!  Since you have rejected the Lord’s command, he has rejected you as king of Israel.”  As Samuel turned to go, Saul tried to hold him back and tore the hem of his robe.  And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to someone else—one who is better than you.  And he who is the Glory of Israel will not lie, nor will he change his mind, for he is not human that he should change his mind!”  Then Saul pleaded again, “I know I have sinned.  But please, at least honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel by coming back with me so that I may worship the Lord your God.”  So Samuel finally agreed and went back with him, and Saul worshiped the Lord.  

1 Samuel 15:22-31

A mask hides what’s underneath.  Symptoms can mask a deeper problem.  Criminals wear masks, and use masks to hide their activities when caught.  Even when apprehended in the very act of their crime, an excuse mask is an attempt to wiggle-free from the consequences.  Masks are common, weak, and ever-present; just ask King Saul.

Saul knew what God wanted him to do, completely destroy the Amalekite nation.  He began well, but never completed his mission.  When it came to finishing the task, he tweaked the orders to savor some of the victory for himself.  He didn’t put the Amalekite King Agag (a ruthless killer) to the sword.  He also managed to pocket some of the wealth of the nation (livestock).  The reasons were obvious; parading the captured king Agag like a puppet on a string would build Saul’s prestige among the people he ruled.  And keeping the livestock to provide a feast for the people…well, feed them and who can get angry?  Keeping the critics off your back is sometimes a full-time job when you’re a king (or any other leader).

When questioned by the prophet Samuel about his rebelliousness, Saul put on his best excuse mask, deflecting Samuel’s questioning accusation.  The livestock were for a sacrifice to honor Jehovah.  From Samuel’s answer we can easily see that he saw right through it, and it disgusted the prophet.  He told Saul God was done with him, because he didn’t know the difference between building his own name, and honoring God’s name.  This incident is how Saul found out that, where God is concerned, there is no such thing as playing both sides of truth.  No mask is capable of hiding you from He who IS truth.  Saul tried to claim some of the glory and spoils that God had said were not to be spared.  That is not a plan that ever turns out pretty!

For You Today 

One of the reasons God gave us REGULAR worship is we are surrounded by reminders of what it is like to live in truth, and we are then more likely to value living in truth, than grabbing whatever we can obtain by untruth.  Saul learned that lesson the hard way, and it cost him whatever honor and place in the Kingdom he thought he possessed.  He was afraid of the people’s opinion of him; he should have been concerned with God’s opinion.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  A Rebellious Servant - Part 1  and A Rebellious Servant - Part 2  

Title Image: via Pixabay.com    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

When Fools Lead the Parade

 

Thursday, November 18, 2021

The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage.  But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.  And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”  Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting.  They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.  His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.  As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!”  And with that, he died.  Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.  A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.    Acts 7:54 – 8:1

Stephen knew what he was doing, and what might be the outcome.  His one chargeable offense was simply telling the truth, when all the selfless fools in charge wanted was for him to shut his mouth.  He spoke truth anyway.

What was the truth Stephen spoke that eventually winded up with those five fatal words:  And with that, he died?  Backing up in the story we find Stephen telling everyone with ears that Jesus is the Messiah, Lord, Savior, and the only hope for sinful humans to be saved.  The commotion resulted in him having to tell the story to the fools leading the parade…religious zealots who demanded prestige over faith.

Some would criticize Stephen’s choice to speak-up, when keeping quiet may have saved his life, and given him a much longer time to spread the Gospel.  But what kind of Gospel would he have been offering if he’d failed to deliver truth to those who needed it most?  Had Stephen kept quiet, he might have avoided the death penalty, as well as sparing the rest of the believers the persecution that followed.  But staying an ”underground resistance movement” was never in God’s plan.  Persecution of the early church was like pouring water on a grease fire…it just caused the Gospel to spread-out from Jerusalem to the entire world.  Instead of a new Jewish sect among many divisions in the religious systems of men, God wanted a universal faith that made fellowship of humans with their Creator an open door to the joy of eternal life. 

For You Today

So…like Stephen, has God called you to speak truth…the truth of the Gospel…to the leaders of the band, or the lowest of the land?  You’ll find fools at both ends.  You’ll also find souls starving for the truth of Jesus Christ, Lord of Glory.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For another post on this text see Discarded - May 17, 2017 or Shooting the Messenger Dec 26, 2016

 

The Sons of Zebedee

 

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside privately and told them what was going to happen to him.  “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law.  They will sentence him to die.  Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified.  But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.  ”Then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons.  She knelt respectfully to ask a favor.  “What is your request?” he asked.  She replied, “In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”  But Jesus answered by saying to them, “You don’t know what you are asking!  Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?”  “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!”  Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup.  But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left.  My Father has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.”  When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant.  But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them.  But among you it will be different.  Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.  For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”                         Matthew 20:17-28

From our perspective (on this side of the cross) there is nothing unexpected in what Jesus said; for James,John and their Mom, it turned everything on its ear.

It wasn’t odd for an ambitious mother to ask a favor for sons; nor was it unusual for the sons to claim they were up to the task, and probably deserved what their mother requested.  What was odd (at least to the disciples at that moment) is that Jesus, the one they understood to be the next CEO of the world, said it wasn’t within his power to select his vice-presidents. 

And then the real bomb dropped; he told them if they wanted to reach the top in his organization the boys had to start in the mail room.  That’s right – go to the bottom, do the grunt work…then just trust me.  It was not exactly the expected insider treatment, where knowing the right person at the top gets you special favors.

But the most tragic part of this scene is the context; Jesus has just announced what was going to take place, arrest, flogging, crucifixion and death…and the sons of compassion start arguing about who’s in control.  To make matters worse, Jesus corrected Mama Zebedee and her boys loud enough for the other 10 disciples to hear.  They throw a hissy-fit, and the first church fight is on!  And we’ve been messing up the stew ever since.  Power, prestige, and the purse…not much changes.

Except, somewhere in this messy mix called the church, there are disciples who get it.  And when they get it they also roll-up their shirt sleeves, get their hands a little dirty, and get the work of the kingdom done, proclaiming the Good News, feeding some hungry kids, clothing the naked ones, visiting the lonely prisoners, and carrying plenty of cold cups of water in the name of God’s Son. 

There are some who manage to figure out its not about the position you hold, it’s about the people you hold up.

For You Today

I recall a sermon Dr. Tony Campolo once preached he called Titles or Testimonies?  The whole point was, as a believer in Jesus, do you want to have people put you on a pedestal and say all sorts of nice things about you?  Or do you want to have some real fruit of your labor to lay at Jesus’ feet when it’s your time?  Do you want a position and a title…or would you rather have the testimony of a faithful servant?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today!

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Title Image:  Wikimedia Commons  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on Matthew 20 see Christmas Pony Prayers

Cracked Pot Decisions

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Listen to the word of the Lord, people of Jacob—all you families of Israel!  This is what the Lord says:  “What did your ancestors find wrong with me  that led them to stray so far from me?  They worshiped worthless idols, only to become worthless themselves…. “Go west and look in the land of Cyprus; go east and search through the land of Kedar.  Has anyone ever heard of anything as strange as this?  Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all?  Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols!  The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay,” says the Lord.  “For my people have done two evil things:  They have abandoned me—the fountain of living water.  And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!    Jeremiah 2:4-5, 10-13

The term “crackpot” may have outlived its usefulness.  It was a great debating vilification of the other side’s position some centuries ago when pottery was in daily use in the average household.  Everyone then knew a cracked pot wouldn’t do what it was created to do…hold milk, wine, or water.  So a crackpot idea was one that wouldn’t hold anything valuable, thereby making it a worthless position.  Jeremiah’s whole point about Israel’s cracked pot decision-making was that they’d made worthless decisions about their God and had, accordingly, become worthless cracked pots themselves.  The scathing rebuke for Israel is that, in the same way you get up covered in fleas if you lie down with the yard dogs, you also become whatever you worship.  They had exchanged the glory of Almighty God for the worthlessness of carved idols of stone; they’d gone from riches to rags.

It’s not an easy ride reading the words of a prophet like Jeremiah.  Day after day his finger points loudly at our decisions gone wrong.  What is so annoying about Jeremiah is that he is simply right; the choices didn’t have to go so wrong had the leaders and followers simply chosen to use the unfailing vessel of Godliness, rather than the cracked pot of selfishness.  They had accepted God’s gracious covenant, only to then (strangely enough) return to idols and superstition.  It was like the sign-then-drive events at car dealerships; they signed the deal, rode away in the convertible, forgot about their part in the bargain, and were never heard from again.  When the car of their cracked pot theology began to break down, they’d come back to the altar and point to the covenant terms as if God were the one breaking the deal.  Jeremiah called that strange; indeed!

Whether or not our country was founded intentionally as a Christian nation, or not, is a debate I’m not willing to explore today.  However, it is hardly debatable that we are anything but that today.  From the pornography on TV screens and theatres, to price-gouging in a Covid-19 crisis, and the selfish posturing of politicians, and justifying sexually-perverted alternative lifestyles, we can proclaim Christianity as a national profile until blue in the face from holding our breath against the stench of sin…we, as a nation, have abandoned whatever humility we may once have owned toward the God of grace and glory – and we have done it in favor of the idols of self-gratification, money, power, and prestige.

In answer to Jeremiah’s question

Has anyone ever heard of anything as strange as this?  Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all? 

Yup!

For You Today

Perhaps it’s time to stop holding everyone else accountable and begin-again the true Christian practice of looking within; we might start asking God to judge us and set us straight.  Then, at least in Heaven, we might have a shot at not being such a nation of cracked pots.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on this topic see Hope - Part 1

Holding Tightly This Promise

[i][ii]

Monday, April 8, 2019

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.  By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.  And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him.  For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.  Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.  Hebrews 10:19-25

As we move towards what I consider the most blessed time of the year, Holy Week, the passion of Christ, His triumphal entry, Good Friday, and culminating in Easter’s resurrection glory, we focus during this season of Lenten preparation on the blood of Christ, his sacrificial offering for the cleansing of our sins.

In Exodus 40 we read the elaborate instructions God gave to Moses for setting-up the tabernacle in the wilderness.  This detailed process was not to be varied, because each movement, and each article placed in the tent of meeting spoke a piece of God’s forgiveness, and His relationship with His special people.  In the ancient “temple mode” a consecrated priest would enter the most holy place and offer the sacrifice for sin once a year…every year!

In writing this letter to the Hebrews the author picks up this imagery and reminds us of the hope to which all disciples of Jesus Christ hold.  Once Jesus finished his work on the cross, it was he, the Lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the world, who would bring the sacrifice into the perfect Holy place, Heaven’s throne.  There, the forgiveness for sin was made complete forever.

The writer, having outlined God’s marvelous plan of redemption, the purging of sin and cleansing of our souls, then proceeds to tell us what to do with it, namely we are to embrace it…tightly!

Corrie ten Boom’s tragic life is chronicled in The Hiding Place.  Her family heroically protected Jewish people during WWII’s Hitler regime, only to wind up in concentration camps themselves.  This family held to their Christian faith seriously, laying everything on the line for the cause of protecting innocent lives.  In an interview I watched in the 1970’s Corrie talked about material things, as opposed to God’s spiritual promises.  I will never forget what she said:

I learned to hold material things loosely in my hands; if you hold them too tightly it hurts when God pries them out of your fingers.

These words are a wonderful reminder that the blood of Christ was not shed so we could possess money, power, or prestige.  Those are but passing wildflowers, bloom today – faded memories tomorrow.  That is also the case with sorrows, poverty, and shame – the world’s cruelty passes as quickly as its pleasures.

Holding tightly to something is reserved for that which is precious, vital for eternity.  There are many things in life to hold loosely, but there are also a few things to which we should refuse to let go, even with our life hanging in the balance…truth and fidelity are among these, and the chief reason is the promise of God, His love and care, displayed in sacrifice and resurrection.  The writer of Hebrews told us to keep meeting together in worship, focusing on this gift of Christ, encouraging one another with its’ meaning, provoking one another to good works in Christ’s name. 

For You Today

To what (or Whom) have you been holding tightly?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©